Now he creates wearable tech Halloween costumes and recently
sold his company, Digital Dudz, to
the British company that makes Morphsuits, where he now
works (nope, we didn't know they were a British invention
either).

It all began on Halloween in 2011, where Rober unveiled a
costume like no-one had seen before. Using two iPads, one on the
front and one on his back, he was able to create the illusion of
seeing through his body by linking the two using FaceTime.

iPad2 Halloween Costume- Gaping hole in torsoMark Rober

"I handed my phone to my wife and said, 'people love this at the
party, just film this,'" he says. He put the video on
YouTube and it instantly went viral, getting 1.5 million views
in a day. "Everything has stemmed from that one decision."

By the following Halloween, he was ready to share his invention
with the rest of the world. With a couple of friends he created a
free app, a bunch of t-shirt designs, and a website selling
wearable tech Halloween costumes. After cutting a hole in the shirt
and duct-taping your device on the inside, their app would play a
video that made part of the t-shirt's illustration look alive.

On 3 October 2012 they went live.

"We spent zero dollars on advertising. We just had a YouTube
video and that was it," he says. "We did a quarter million dollars
in revenue, just in three weeks."

Since then the app has been downloaded a quarter of a million
times and Rober has left behind a career with Nasa and gone
full-time with his costumes. He's constantly bubbling with energy
during our phone call, half-excited about the adventure he's on
but, I'm guessing, also half-astounded at the ridiculousness of the
whole situation.

"Last year you had to cut a hole in [your t-shirt] and duct tape
your phone to your shirt," he says, stressing his words as if to
say, 'and people still loved it'.

"It's so ghetto," he jokes. This year they've upgraded and
included a pocket to hold the phone. "You don't need to have as
many MacGyver skills this year," he says.

You begin to suspect that Nasa's got a lot less fun
since he left

New designs for this Halloween include integrating the app with
the Morphsuits -- Rober holds a patent for the integration of apps
with clothing and costumes -- and a design that uses your phone's
accelerometer to make it look like your intestines are being ripped
out when someone slaps you on the back.

"It's totally crazy, it'll blow your mind," he says with such
enthusiasm that you begin to suspect that Nasa's got a lot less fun
since he left.

Over the next two years Rober says they'll be using more
features in your smartphone to create new costume experiences.

"You know you have disruptive technologies in the tech [arena],
we want to be disruptive in the fancy dress industry," he says,
laughing. "You've got so many things on there, the accelerometer,
near-field communication, Bluetooth, and other sensors […] There
are cool interactive concepts [to be explored]."

But surely leaving Nasa to design costumes is a strange career
move, to say the least.

"It's a little bit scary," he admits. "But at the same time it's
such a cool opportunity. It's just one of those things in life,
you've just got to see what happens.

"One of the things that always appealed to me about Nasa was we
were always doing cool stuff that no-one's done before," he says,
earlier in our conversation. "Granted nothing's as cool as building
spaceships, but there is also something cool about getting an email
from a guy that says: 'I've never give so many high-fives as I did
last night.'"